IoA + KICC Open Day 2026
Student volunteer at the Institute of Astronomy and Kavli Institute for Cosmology Open Day, University of Cambridge
I was a student volunteer at the Open Day for the Institute of Astronomy and the Kavli Institute for Cosmology at the University of Cambridge on 21 March 2026. I was responsible for the virtual reality booth, where visitors could explore the Universe in immersive 3D using Gaia Sky.
At the booth, visitors of all ages put on a VR headset and travelled from the surface of the Earth, past the planets of the Solar System, and out into the Milky Way and beyond — a vivid demonstration of the scale and structure of the Universe.
Gaia Sky is a free, open-source, real-time 3D astronomy visualisation platform for desktop and VR, developed by the Gaia group at the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut (Heidelberg University) within ESA’s Gaia mission. It enables seamless, scientifically accurate exploration of the cosmos, from nearby asteroids and the Solar System out to distant galaxies, using authentic data from cutting-edge surveys including the Gaia DR1/2/3 star catalogues, SDSS galaxies, and nearby galaxy databases. Built on a multi-scale level-of-detail rendering system, Gaia Sky can display billions of objects simultaneously while supporting stellar proper motions and radial velocities, procedurally generated planetary surfaces, real-time eclipse visualisation, multiple stereoscopic viewing modes, and full virtual reality through OpenXR-compatible headsets.
